ies who
haunt the ancient lands; the sea which drew down the moon as a lover
draws down his mistress; Zante riding the sea like a shadow in harbor.

And they were silent. Dion had a sensation of consciously giving
himself, almost as a bather, to the sea. Did he feel what was coming to
him and to this girl at his side, who was part of him, and yet who was
alone, whose arm clasped his, yet whose soul dwelt far off in its own
remoteness? Would the years draw them closer and closer together, knit
them together, through greater knowledge, through custom, through shared
joys and beliefs, through common beliefs, through children, till they
were as branches growing out of one stem firmly rooted?

He gave himself and gave himself, or tried to give himself in the
silence. Yet he could not have said truly that any mystical knowledge
came to him. Only one thing he seemed strangely to know, that they would
never have children. The sleeping world and the sea, and, as Rosamund
had said, "what surrounds and permeates us and all this" seemed to
permit him mysteriously to get at that one bit of foreknowledge.
Something seemed to say to him, "You will be the father of one child."
And yet, when he came to think of it, he realized how probable, how
indeed almost certain it was that the silent voice issued from within
himself. Rosamund and he had talked about a child, a boy, had begun
almost to sketch out mental plans for that boy's upbringing; they had
never talked about children. He believed that he had penetrated to the
secret of the voice. He said to himself, "All that sort of thing comes
out of one's self. It doesn't reach one from the outside." And yet, when
he looked out over the world, which seemed wrapped in ethereal garments,
garments woven by spirit on looms no hand of woman or man might ever
touch, he was vaguely conscious that all within him which was of any
real value was there too. Surely he did not possess. Rather was he
possessed of.

He looked at Rosamund at last.

"Have you got anything?"

But she did not answer him. There was a great stillness in her big
eyes. All the vital exuberance of body and spirit mingled together had
vanished from her abruptly. Nothing of the Amazon who had captured the
heart of Dirmikis remained. As Dion looked at her now, he simply could
not see the beautiful schoolgirl of sixteen, the blonde gipsy who had
bent forward, cigarette in mouth, to his match, who had leaned back and
blown rings t